This paper investigates, using software modeling and numerical simulations, the annual thermal performance of a public primary school in Cairo governorate in Egypt. This investigation identifies how much time the students achieve thermal comfort in their classrooms during the whole academic year. It is also considered as an attempt to magnify the need for solutions that can enhance thermal comfort in classrooms. As a support to our computer modeling and simulation, this paper preforms also an analysis to the thermal comfort indices via field measurements for the internal temperatures and humidity of a classroom by using the Elitech UR4HC temperature–humidity data logger. The field measurements have taken place in June 2016 for a whole school day from 8:30 am until 14:30 pm. Energy Plus simulation tool has been used utilizing its modeling interface Design Builder. The numerical simulation proposed has considered the real construction aspects and parameters of the classroom case study. Measurements validate the simulation results and ensure that the tool is reliable to be used in the annual simulations, which is the main concern of this paper.
This paper presents, through annual building thermal-performance simulations, the forecasting for the yearly mean indoor air temperatures, Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) model, discomfort hours, and internal heat gain balance. Simulation results indicate the existence of a high level of thermal discomfort during the whole academic year. The annual analysis also indicates around 45% of the working hours are exceeding the maximum limit of the comfort temperature range. Furthermore, the results present a high level of average annual internal heat gain balance throughout the academic year.
As a main contribution of this paper, the simulation results draw attention to the importance of integrating new passive cooling strategies or energy efficient cooling systems in order to: stabilize the indoor temperature, increase the students' thermal comfort and decrease the internal heat balance for enhancing the thermal performance of school buildings in the future.